


Ephemeral, Just Like You

by MiChiAzalie



Series: Beyond A Fleeting Eternity [1]
Category: Fate/EXTRA
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:29:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiChiAzalie/pseuds/MiChiAzalie
Summary: “You asshole, you scared me,” Hakuno whispered, something in the rawness and sincerity of her voice telling him she probably thought he was unconscious. “For a moment I thought I’d lost you.” A pang of sadness lingered in her voice.After sustaining a grave injury against Julius’s Servant, Gilgamesh struggles to come to the realization that his and Hakuno’s time has always been ephemeral. He’s always known this, but only now it became… compromising.
Relationships: Gilgamesh | Archer/Kishinami Hakuno
Series: Beyond A Fleeting Eternity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071221
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	Ephemeral, Just Like You

The wretched machine was doing things on purpose.

He certainly didn’t like things not working as they should be, and _this_ was one such occasion.

As farfetched as it was to think that a machine could have feelings -especially one that was incapable of making recreations without cutting corners in the worst, cheapest of ways-, if the Moon Cell indeed had the capacity for such, he had little doubts it would only feel pure, undulated spite -and he was right to think the damned thing did things on purpose. It apparently didn’t think it was enough to strip him of 90% of his treasury to cross to the Near Side, or pair Hakuno with that rabid clown the round before, that it was now subjecting them both to… _this_.

The sixth round’s Master had been none other than Julius Harwey; hardly a surprise, all things considered, but the knowledge of this still put a frown on Hakuno’s face, the expression she wore ever since she saw his name on the board as if she were trying to come up with some way to avoid confrontation only to come up with the same obvious conclusion over and over again. However, it was a fate that could not be denied.

Hakuno had to kill him. That was all there was to it.

Of course, he was aware of his Master’s reticence on fighting the living corpse that was Julius Harwey with what her memories from the events of the aborted timeline that was the Far Side, and being the softhearted fool that she was, he knew that Hakuno still saw in this version of him the friend whose sacrifice saved her from BB’s snare, but Gilgamesh held no such sentiments; of course, he would not hesitate regardless of whatever soft feelings of compassion his Master would deem appropriate to waste on a pitiable being such as him, and as such he was not much concerned about encountering him in the Arena, either.

Or at least he wasn’t up until the stunt his Servant had attempted to pull against his Master when they inevitably crossed pathways at the very start of the week. Now he was positive he would never forget that Assassin-class Servant of his even if he earnestly wanted to.

There had been a rush of air, seemingly coming from all directions, with no focal point that he could distinguish at first, but there was no Servant in sight. A bold move, to make himself manifest without his Servant tailing close.

Odd, out of place, and certainly a bad omen.

He had known his Servant had to be lingering close by, but his scent was carefully concealed, and then-

“____!”

-then, in the space of a second, there was a flash of white-hot pain, bursting through his chest faster than Hakuno could even start to cast a shield, as though his ribs were being torn apart, as if something was clawing at his insides, and it extended to the rest of his body until he could do nothing but collapse at the onslaught of pain.

All of his thoughts ebbed as he was hit by a sudden wave of vertigo.

It was all absurd.

To think that, in his conceit, he had let some good-for-nothing Servant so much as graze him.

A surprise attack. Retrospectively, he shouldn’t have been surprised, it was only fitting; to attack someone behind their back was the kind of act that only a mongrel would draw upon when fully aware that the odds were against them.

However, the fact still remained and was hard to ignore; he had been hit, and he barely had the time reaction to block it. Hakuno could have almost been stricken by it, but worse, far worse, was the intrusive thought that if he hadn’t instinctively shielded Hakuno back then, in that case, then…

It was… quite frustrating, and Gilgamesh hated being frustrated.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he felt the brunette’s familiar touch on his shoulders, shaking him as she crouched down next to him. Something unintelligible was being said to him. Her lips moved but he could not make out the sound of her voice.

How unsightly. He was not accustomed to this, whatever this was.

He had to be taken out of the Arena by the help of his petite Master; he was relegated to the position of a frail, dependent weakling, as all he could do was let himself be swept by the pull of her arms around his waist as the Arena disappeared in a flash of white and binary code, the warmth of Hakuno against him as she breathed his name like a prayer feeling strangely distant.

It was then that Gilgamesh’s suspicions became more grounded -that in its stupidity, the Moon Cell was deliberately trying to hurt Hakuno and him by extension, as suicidal as it was for an attempt. Thus, if not feelings, it indeed had a brain, and as such, there was surely some kind of drive behind its intentions the ramifications of which he had yet to learn so that he could crush this meritless rock under his heels for the utter _disrespect_ that it had dared to cast upon him, but his thoughts were ebbing, and the exhaustion of that blow was pulling him into an endless sea of a blackness so black it was hard to fight against.

It felt like an endless ordeal.

When they retreated back to their room, the feeling only took a turn for the worse; he was overridden by a strange numbness as if all the bones in his body had come undone.

He knew what this accursed feeling was.

Mana deprivation. That Assassin had made something to his circuits, of that he was sure.

Somewhere through the darkness, Hakuno’s voice managed to reach him, coming out as if submerged at the bottom of a deep lake. It was the last thing that he managed to hear before the world around him stopped its turning and lost its focus.

“ _You asshole, you scared me_ ,” Hakuno whispered, something in the rawness and sincerity of her voice telling him she probably thought he was unconscious, as her displays of emotion were usually more guarded than that. Well, he might as well almost be.

“ _For a moment I thought I’d lost you_.” A pang of sadness lingered in her voice.

* * *

The first thing Gilgamesh registered when he woke was a feeling like his head was breaking in two halves.

Second was that he was back at their private room in the School.

Third was that he was without clothes -which was fine, of course. He was no stranger when it came to sleep in the nude, so this hardly came as unnatural or surprising. The suit, one of the few things that survived the Moon Cell’s toll to cross to the other side, lay discarded in a haphazard mess in some distant corner of the room. There were blotches of dried blood on them -most probably Hakuno had tried to undress him in a hurry to tend for the injuries that were beneath.

Fourth was that he felt hot, as if struck with fever and feeling incredibly exhausted. Gilgamesh felt the room spin, deciding for a moment to close his eyes and regretting his decision almost instantly when he saw that this merely served to make it spin faster.

He opened his eyes, bleary vision coming into focus and breath coming out in a rasp. He was covered in sweat and there was some dried blood there as well where he had been injured. An ugly gash was at his chest, where his heart ought to be, still somewhat tender. He could see the remnants of some attempt that was made to patch it up.

The fifth and final thing he realized that morning was that Hakuno was nowhere in sight. He could still feel her presence somewhere close by, but not as close enough as he would have liked, which was an ill-sighted fact, considering how he was running on his own mana reserves now and time was truly of the essence.

Lips curled in distaste.

The memory of how he got there in the first place came back in full force and he despised what he saw. Tiredness threatened to pull him into a dreamless sleep again but the knowledge that he was slowly but steadily depleting his reserves of magic because of the foul trickery of some good-for-nothing Assassin was enough for him to fight against the pull.

He would not let himself fade for something so asinine. He needed Hakuno back this instant and he needed her now, which begged the question of her current whereabouts. Somewhere, from some unspecified place that lay beyond this room but not too far away, Hakuno’s voice was managing to reach him -but even if she was still lingering close, she shouldn’t have left at all in the first place. Had his presence beside her become such a triviality that she chose to abandon him in his hour of need on some cheap box of springs while she went to do useless errands not because she wanted to but because she ought to?

…No, there was someone else there.

Through his haze, he could hear voices pass from beyond the closed door of their room, and amongst those he heard snippets of some uninteresting conversation his Master was holding with Rin outside. It sounded more muffled than it ought to be, as if the two of them were mumbling to each other in some kind of boring, foolish attempt at secrecy. He tried to stand up but found himself unable to; he could do nothing else but to listen for the time being.

“…You’re lucky he attacked you both in there, you know. Elsewhere, you wouldn’t have lasted that long and an escape would have been difficult to pull off.”

He heard his mongrel sigh in the distance.

“That’s a relief. Although how’s… How is Gilgamesh going to be?”

Did she really need to ask such paltry questions?

The answer to that ought to be obvious.

“Well…” Rin seemed to trail off at that. “From what you’ve told me, it seems that whatever Julius’ Servant attacked Goldie with, it severely damaged his magic circuits to the point that the conduits that provide mana from you to him are no longer functioning the way they should.” he heard her tell his Master, but it somehow sounded distant, as if the conversation was taking place at some great distance away from where he was.

_Goldie?_

That vain, sad excuse of a mage had dared to change his namesake just like that.

_How dare she…!_

He’s heard enough of this. Surely, while recovery was a stronger imperative, he wasn’t about to let some pesky mongrel speak of him in such a manner, but he immediately regretted his attempt at leaving the bed. Everything around him started to spin again, his head pounded horrendously and he also felt that slightly feverish feeling of before come back with full force. He squeezed his eyes shut as if it would somehow make the pain go away and stop the world around him in a halt, and flopped back down on the pillow with a hiss.

It didn’t quite work the way he wanted it to. No matter how hard he tried, it was just as though he had been glued to the bed. He was but unable to move an inch from his current position.

He had no choice but to keep listening, cursing his weakened state as he glared at the door, thinking that if he stared at the door with enough intensity, he could throttle the other girl from where he stood.

“You know how a Servant’s body is only maintained as it is through the flow of their Master’s mana. Without it…”

“I know, I know; they fade,” his Master finished for her. The small silence that followed could only be described as ominous.

“Yeah, right. He needs an infusion of mana and he needs it soon,” she said as a matter of fact.

“Of course—” Hakuno went to reply, only for her words to die off in her throat when the obvious implication of what she’d been told made it to her brain, breath hitching. “Oh. _Oh_.”

He didn’t particularly enjoy the crestfallen tone of her voice.

“Yes, _oh_. You _do_ know how to do that, though? I’d hate to be the one to be giving you that kind of _talk,_ you know.”

“No, no, _no_ ; please don’t,” Hakuno sighed then, a sound that she made when preparing herself to face something unpleasant. “You don’t need to tell me twice. I… I already know a little bit of that, I guess.”

Well, well, _well_.

“I mean, I-… I-I’d help you with that, but mana transfers are… well, they are…” Rin fumbled with words, almost as if the thought of it was much more mortifying for her than it was for Hakuno. “…you know, intimate. And Gods know I don’t want to get close to that storm you have for a Servant.”

 _Better,_ he found himself thinking before another wave of pain hit him with enough force that he had to close his eyes to take it all in.

“I’ll- I’ll see what I can do,” Hakuno stammered, her voice a reflection of unease as well. “…Thank you, Rin.”

“Good luck with that, Hakuno, you’ll need it.”

That _wench_.

There was some clanking of heels that disappeared into the distance before the door to their private room opened with a loud creak, Hakuno slipping into the room before the doors closed again behind her. The expression on her face when her gaze met his could only be described as weary and concerned. There were wrinkles already forming on her otherwise calm features as she frowned, making quick strides towards the bed that he seemed unable to leave from.

Hakuno sucked in a breath, body tensing at the sight of him.

“You’re awake,” was her awestruck, not so clever observation upon his awakening.

When she got close enough, knees practically bumping against the edge of the mattress, he could see how her brows were furrowed, eyes quickly darting from one part of his body to another as she leaned over to examine him, her gaze never lingering for long on one place as she looked everywhere for any remaining injuries.

Gilgamesh could hear traces of underlying apprehension in Hakuno’s voice despite her attempts at passing it off as nonchalant.

He scoffed at her obvious observation, but it was half-hearted and he didn’t manage to sound as offended nor as sharp as he would have normally gone for.

“Of course I am, only a fool would think that a mere miscalculation would render me useless, and paltry though your attempts at bringing me back from unconsciousness were, they have indeed been of some benefit even whilst clearly being not enough,” he said, wincing as he tried to get himself to sit on the mattress, this time succeeding in his attempt.

It was only half the truth; there was still that sickening feeling that he had very scarcely experienced, of mana not flowing the way it should, overtaking him whole, and it was miraculous enough the blow had only damaged his circuits temporarily so -and even more miraculous was that Hakuno’s mere hand-holding and measly attempts at patching him up had given him some much needed mana so that he wouldn’t be bedridden for the rest of the day, but in the end all of that was inconsequential -mana deprivation had an easy fix, and he was not without a suitable Master.

The didn’t need to dance around the subject.

Brown eyes stared back at his own glassy red ones sullenly. Perceiving an unpleasant train of thought, Gilgamesh spoke.

“…Ah, but what’s with that face just now, Hakuno? You look ready to weep. Was my sleeping face so beautiful as to move you?”

Which apparently didn’t elicit the response he was expecting to see upon her face, almost as if that had been the wrong thing to say. She remained silent to that, directing her gaze to the floor instead as she made a grimace of reluctance. Her brown eyes that showed small specks of amber here and there even in lousy fluorescent lighting refused to look at him. As much as she wanted to feign disinterest, Hakuno had become upset, the kind of upset one could feel it radiating from her and permeating in the air.

Ah, but this was simply unacceptable.

“Hakuno.” His voice calling out her name seemed to pull her away from whatever thoughts seemed to run through her head.

He reached a hand up to her, his ungloved fingers resting beneath her chin, tipping it up so that she could face him properly as she should, and his eyes met with hers. He found that the resentful look he got from her at that, that on any other occasion would have amused him so, was hardly satisfying. The defeated sigh that came later was adding to his displeasure.

Hakuno seemed to find herself trapped in an unsavory thought of her own. She folded her arms against her chest and looked morosely at him.

“…I’m sorry.” Her voice was very tiny when she spoke.

He raised one eyebrow.

“Whatever for?” and he hates how his voice comes out as a pained rasp.

“This-This is my fault; That you… that you wouldn’t wake up. Had I casted that shield sooner-”

Was the fool under the impression that had she somehow been able to detect that peril beforehand, this could have been avoided? Or was she simply under the foolish impression that she was a bad support? His foolish little dreamer… Such earnest sentiments, his Master held; however, it was of little use to consider what ifs and could have beens. She should know better than that, and even more so, she should be more aware of the fact that he didn’t need any of that useless worrying of hers as of now. Having her body remain close to his as she healed him with whatever mana infusion she could provide him with was all he required at that very moment.

Gods knew, she only had but to remain at his side and show him her due reverence. He would content himself with that for the time being.

“You fool. Are you so wrapped-up in your own self-pity so as to think this has anything to do with your average magecraft? Cease these trifling considerations of yours at once -this indecision of yours is unbefitting and I didn’t choose to swing my sword at your call only to watch you wallow in petty worries.”

She spluttered.

“ _How_ can you be so damn calm about this. I... god _damn_ , I failed to support you, and… and you almost faded!”

She responded with such honesty, so simply, as if the answer ought to be obvious, that it disconcerted him somewhat at first.

He stared at her for a short moment of pondering, and before he could give it much more of a thought… a small chuckle escaped him, the confused look on his Master’s face the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes and his quiet chuckle turned into laughter. The smirk that was forming upon his lips somewhat looked strained, the accursed sickening feeling making it falter ever so slightly, but it still managed to make her pause.

“Ah, I see how it is now. Was my Master worried because she had not been graced with my presence that she can’t go without? It is alright. I shall allow your eyes linger if it shall put your meager worries at rest.”

Mortification, he decided, was an expression that looked impossibly endearing on Hakuno.

“ _What_? _No,_ I said nothing of that! It’s just-”

His satisfaction only grew that much more as he watched her cringe outwardly for something that she no doubt was thinking about, although the expression disappeared faster than Gilgamesh could inquire her further about it and was replaced again by that speck of something in her face that looked decidedly guilty and meek.

Was this a regret of some sort?

Gilgamesh won’t stand for it, paltry self-consciousness could more than wait; there were still things that he needed from her so that he could be restored to his former self that simple hand-holding and kissing could not provide, and all of this conversation, as he watched his Master stand before him and fret uselessly over possibilities and what ifs, felt more like a stalling tactic the more it dragged on.

“Hakuno, closer, come here closer,” Gilgamesh cut through, his voice hardening into a tone that made her stop in her tracks -the voice that he occasionally used when Hakuno needed someone who could keep her grounded to reality, to remind her how to breath-, and she did.

At his command, Hakuno bended down slightly, hands coming to rest against the edges of the bed so as not to lose balance, and in that moment, following a raw instinct he did not entirely understand, he took ahold of both her wrists and pulled her down onto him so that he could press his lips against hers in a kiss, the feeling of precious, precious mana filling his whole being with a warmth he hadn’t been aware he had craved that much. He pulled her further into the bed, luring her in with one kiss after another until she was all but straddling him. His hands left her wrists so that they could rest instead around her waist, using the renewed strength to roll the both of them over in a reversal of positions, their bodies bouncing onto the mattress a little.

He drank in her gasps before lack of air forced him to break away. When he let her go, his eyes took her in; he wasn’t sure if Hakuno wasn’t aware of it or if she actually did it on purpose, but she was on the bed with her legs spread wider than they ought to in an image that was hard to tear away from.

“Gil-”

Hesitation was still clear in her body expression. She had shifted her gaze away from his with an expression that he recognized, knowing it for the face that someone would make when they were gathering the courage to ask him something -or in Hakuno’s case, to prepare herself for some unavoidable fate. It was almost as if she was imposing herself some measure of self-restraint that he failed to see the appeal of. He could tell, knowing his Master so and by the look she was giving him with her eyes, that this was more of a duty than anything else for her.

The _audacity_ of this; the notion itself should be ridiculous and it ought to be rectified.

There had never been a woman who had ever refused him, none had ever hesitated when presented with the opportunity as so much be graced with his presence, let alone his touch. Those who have benefited from his largesse craved him.

They came onto him on their own, spread themselves for him and him alone; that he so much as looked their way made them weep.

And now, to be seen as a duty… preposterous.

He wasn’t allowing to be seen as a duty any time soon, so he shot down her pretended rebuttal almost immediately.

“You are aware of what I require,” When he spoke, his voice was impossibly low, lips still precariously close to one another. “And you know what it needs to be done, too; didn’t you say so some moments prior to that mongrel friend of yours? That you knew of what to do?” He noticed her take an intake of breath at that as he ran a finger along her cheek. Lips curled up in a knowing smirk in spite of the ever-lingering feeling of exhaustion and pain. “I've seen your eyes roam on me. Isn’t this such a convenient opportunity to satiate that fascination of yours?”

Her mouth opened once, but no sensible response came out of her quivering lips as she seemed to be having some sort of internal debate with herself. Then it closed again and opened once more when she finally settled on something worth voicing.

And then the deadpan look that followed her words was also immediate.

“What- Gil, _Gil,_ it’s practically impossible not to when you literally _gleam_ and you're with me all the damned time. Of course I look at you, how am I not supposed to?”

“Then what do I owe this paltry hesitation of yours to?”

His eyes narrowed slightly as well as he surveilled the brunette’s expression. He regarded her with piercing hellfire eyes, and watched her shudder minutely under his scrutiny.

"Your heart’s beating fast and you still feel tense,” Gilgamesh murmured, trailing a path down her neck with his fingertips until his palm rested against her strumming heartbeat. “Are you so weak of heart that you would start doubting yourself, now of all times…? Are you such a woman, Hakuno?” His words come as a dangerous purr, testing.

He saw her visibly stiffen at that for a few instants, but a look into her eyes as she raised her chin to acknowledge him dissipated whatever suspicions he might have possibly held.

Hakuno, this time around, graced him with a reply that was clear and determined;

"No- _No_ ,” she said this with renewed vehemence, and that look of weird yet undulated determination that followed was sure to be engraved on his mind for some time. “I’m not letting you fade and I’m not having second thoughts, Gilgamesh, I’m _good_ ," Hakuno shakes her head. "I know… what I have to do; just let me-”

“Promises, promises,” he said, making himself sound highly skeptical. “If that is truly the case, then cease this indecision of yours and finish what you started -shying away now is ill-suited.”

She gave him a look at his words, a slight puff of breath leaving her lips as she made her irritation known with a huff, but he would permit this, since she was his. She would be repaying his kindness in short, after all.

“Fine, _but_ I’m not as experienced as you would like.”

“Hmph, don’t so casually assume what I like and do not like, Hakuno. Do you think I expect some touch-deprived fool to be well-versed in the pleasures of the flesh? You could only dream,” the salaciousness in his voice was not lost to her, he could tell.

He saw the start of another rebuttal, a frown making yet another appearance on her face before he successfully stopped her short when he leaned down again to press his lips to hers in another lingering kiss. Untouched or not, she followed her instincts well; she threw her arms around his neck, and he pressed himself closer against her until they were a mess of lips and tangled limbs from then on.

Him, a duty? He would make her pay that the mere prospect of it dared to cross her mind.

Her top garments were the first that he decided had to go, brown and white clothes now laying in a heap on the floor soon followed by a bra, a skirt and pair of shoes, until all she had left on her body were her black stockings and her underwear. 

As if mimicking his earlier actions, she pulled him into another lingering kiss and slid her hands to roam around his torso, the touch unsure but inquisitive, the kiss merely starting as a tentative brush of lips before he decided to take over again.

He remained expectant as he felt those warm hands of hers move tentatively along his skin. They first traveled down his collarbone then slipped down over his ribcage, fingers tracing over the red-inked patterns that swirled around his skin. Such clumsy, uncertain touches, and yet still desire built in, a wave of lust washing over him that was both decadent and pure.

He smirked against her lips, feeling the strength he had been stripped of slowly but surely coming back to him.

When he felt those hands of hers still, no longer knowing what to do with them, he broke apart from her lips to mouth along her neck, pulling her deeper into the sheets as he trailed down her breastbone before taking a nipple into his mouth. The reaction was immediate, Hakuno’s body arching under his as her fists gripped the sheets underneath them, offering herself to him so _well._

He took his time to suck on the nub before moving onto the other, Hakuno’s virginity apparent in the way she all but bucked erratically against him at the stimulation on her chest. He groaned against the softness of her skin, his hands moving to rest on her hips to keep them steady.

Her breath was coming in short gasps, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes half-lidded. When a hand of his, formerly pressing against a hipbone, snaked down to trace along her folds through the soiled fabric of her underwear, she all but keened his name.

He continued to rub her, more opened mouthed moans escaping her lips. Her high-pitched sounds made him shiver with the knowledge of what was to come, anticipation dripping in the form of perspiration down his skin.

“You’ve saved yourself well enough for me, haven’t you? I do believe I should reward such efforts.”

When he tugged down Hakuno’s last piece of clothing it wasn’t gentle, but she didn’t make any mention of it, most probably not quite minding the rougher handling in such a state. There was no warning given either when he leaned down her neck and bit into the junction between her shoulder and neck, the sinking of his teeth not as hard so as to draw blood, but enough to draw another loud cry from her.

His thumb expertly rubbed circles around her clit all the while, smearing her juices all over the bundle of nerves. The finger that entered her to all but prepare her for him met little to no resistance, drawing another long moan from her. He knew he found her soft spot when the brunette started to clench violently against his fingers, hips buckling against them in search for that much wanted friction.

The ministrations went on like this leisurely, his own cock twitching at the thought of slipping inside those tightened walls -and while he would love to tease her so until she was rendered useless against him, until she could do nothing else but to crave his touch, this did not seem to be such an occasion. However, he would store the thought for later, for when the peril of vanishing was no more.

He took hold of her legs and pulled them both up, spreading them and bending them over so that they didn’t get in the way and he could nestle closer between them, guiding himself to her entrance and slowly pushing inside.

A small gasp sounding both pained and relieved escaped her as he entered her, head thrown back and eyes shut tight. Gilgamesh could feel her tighten as he pressed in further, groaned as her heat constricted him. He paused when he felt her tense before she would clamp down painfully on him, and moved when her walls eased enough to continue; there were plenty of signs of discomfort displaying across her face but Hakuno simply bit her lip and took everything silently.

“ _Shit.”_

Or perhaps not so silently.

The corners of her eyes were slightly watery, but nothing came out of them as he moved slowly into her, sliding in and out rhythmically until the discomfort seemed to ease away from her features. Her whimpers could be heard even under his own groans as he took her pleasure for his own, the sweet, slow torture that were his thrusts getting to them both, and worthwhile were the low, pathetic moans tumbling down her throat as he set a comfortable pace.

Sweat coated her body, eyes screwed tightly shut before she started to try meet his methodic thrusts, slowly albeit awkwardly, inexperience showing in the way she met him a little too roughly and no wonder hurting herself in the process, if the pained hiss that escaped her lips was any indicative of such. The suddenness of that made him falter if only slightly, hissing as well.

“Idiot, don’t you just move like that,” he hissed as he attempted to regain the rhythm he had lost.

Hakuno’s voice cracked when she tried to give him some semblance of a reply.

“ _Shitshit-_ that’s a little bit _too late_ to tell me that-!”

He slammed in deeper then, a strangled whimper coming out from her that was strangely pleasing to the ears. He seized the moment of surprise to lean down and capture her lips in his again, tongue slipping into Hakuno’s mouth as he started to thrust into her in a slightly faster pace. A particular shift of his hips had her body bucking violently against him and groaning into his mouth. He let himself smirk against her mouth, knowing he had found again that spot in her that had her keening his name. He kept hitting it mercilessly, again and again, eliciting the same violent response from before, her legs trembling under his hold.

Gilgamesh broke away from her lips and laughed breathlessly as he leaned down to nip again at her neck. “…But I could get used to this. To you underneath me,” he murmured right by her ear as he pushed himself into her.

He could feel himself starting to get close, the pressure of being inside her too intense to ignore. The sound of his name was on her lips, almost like a mantra, as his own heavy breaths mingled with her broken gasps. He dug his fingernails into the soft skin of her thighs as he held them tighter, watching how her entire body was tensing as well before a scream of mixed pain and pleasure escaped her lips, the first but not last orgasm that he would coax out from her.

* * *

He lost the count of how many times their bodies connected until exhaustion caught up to the both of them. The last that he remembered was when she had been rolled onto her stomach with her legs spread while he held onto her hips.

As of now, Hakuno lay curled up beside him littered in marks and bites, her chest rising steadily as she was engulfed in a transient slumber. The artificial sunset sun that seeped through the windows casted a reddish halo around her brown hair as it cascaded down her shoulders and obscured her face. Moments like this, when the Moon Cell’s shabby attempts at recreating forces of nature seemed to purposely mock him for his past judgements, were certainly rare.

Now that he was restored to his former strength before that walking corpse’s Servant had struck him, he let his eyes linger on her form, rapt by how simple and unlabored all her movements were.

Hakuno wasn’t particularly special. She wasn’t a particularly good mage either, she didn’t even have a name of renown and her pale skin along with the brown on brown effect that blasphemy that was her school uniform casted upon her made her blend with the background almost seamlessly. She was no one of importance. An ordinary bystander who somehow managed the almost impossible, _audacious_ accomplishment of reaching him.

But.

There was a way in how she moved, how she carried herself. Even if hopeless, she still tried to find a way to overcome the deadly aroma of death that surrounded her like pesky flies.

His Master was a glitch. Small, barely there, but she stood out like a shining star on a black night sky.

How odd. He's morbidly curious, and the feeling that he was missing something was growing stronger the more he tried to satisfy his curiosity.

At the time, as he considered matters of his own, an uncomfortable thought struck him.

If everything went satisfactorily, in less than a few more weeks Hakuno would return back to Earth. Gone will be her passing through the Moon Cell, and gone will be her contract with him. Just like that, ephemeral like the seafoam of waves breaking on rocks. The thought alone made him sick for reasons unfathomable.

Hakuno was a glitch, but she was also made to have a fleeting existence. He’s known this, but only now it became… compromising.

Pondering on this, he closed his eyes for a moment, banishing inappropriate feelings -disappointment being one such. This, whatever this was, should not be affecting Gilgamesh as much as it was, but it was and he hardly knows what to make of it.

Without giving it so much as a second thought, he reached out hand and ran his fingers through Hakuno’s hair in a touch that was perhaps more feather-light than he intended at first. He ran them through the strands of her hair all the way down her cheek, allowing his palm to rest there for a long moment before he retreated it back.

Because none other than him was there to see, it would be as though his hand had never been there in the first place.

At that moment, there was a small flicker of an emotion he could not affix a name to, too fragile to even deserve one yet, but that he thought he was getting closer to give form to that concept.

Allowing such an ending to happen, letting the victorious Master of the Moon Cell to be returned to seafoam, would only be unsatisfactory. If that was what the Moon Cell deemed as meant to be, then the only option left for him was to crush that pre-fabricated providence.

Hakuno was his and his alone. No one else would have her.

She would not leave his side.

Gilgamesh would only need to arrange a few things so that it stayed that way. He was victorious in bypassing the Moon Cell once, it was only natural to think he shall be victorious another. It was absurd thinking otherwise.

He let his mind drift to that AI’s pathetic last moments; _nowhere to return to,_ that’s what that Moon Cancer had said at the time. He thought he was getting closer to parsing the real meaning behind her words at the time.

Regardless of how much the automaton on the Moon seemed to desire to erase Hakuno, only one conclusion would prevail, and Gilgamesh was intent on showing that to that accursed machine by force if he needed to. 

Ah, but who would have thought? A stubborn little nothing that went by the name of Hakuno Kishinami was his key.

_Nowhere to go to? We shall see._

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was in the mood for feels, I tried to write feels aaaand ended up with... this? Again, here's to hope it's semi-decent. Also, I think that in CCC it is said that Hakuno was brought to the Far Side _after_ beating Julius, but for the sake of plot convenience let's pretend this didn't happen yet lmao.


End file.
